According to company sources, the acquisition is aimed at spearheading the Group's plans to accelerate its Business Process Outsourcing operations in the India, South Africa and UK.

The investment will create 1,400 new jobs in India and South Africa.

"We see in the BPO market a high growth potential. To exploit this opportunity, we are investing in both new and existing international locations and plan to build facilities for a total of 2,000 contact centre seats globally - both on-shore and off-shore," Group Vice-Chairman Prashan Jhawar today said commenting on the acquisition.

He said the move would meet the demands of major blue chip organisations and give them the choice of leveraging domestic and overseas BPO capabilities." This acquisition will ensure close synergies between Ushacomm, Eppixcomm and Converso and add to the delivery of end-to-end Customer Care&Billing solutions, and other back office services to their customers, the company sources said.

The Group's existing offices in India and South Africa will be used as the basis for building further BPO facilities.

With diversified interests in telecom, software, mining and manufacturing, the Group also owns Ushacomm and Eppixcomm, world's leading providers of Business Support Systems (BSS) for fixed, mobile, broadband/IP, cable, and satellite markets across America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.